


The Death of Jarbon the Dancer

by Esteliel



Category: Swordspoint Series - Ellen Kushner
Genre: Bloodplay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 21:18:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esteliel/pseuds/Esteliel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jarbon the Dancer was dead. But he had been dead long before St. Vier came to the village.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Death of Jarbon the Dancer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brigdh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigdh/gifts).



> Thank you to my wonderful beta Beruthiel's Cats! :)

It had begun to snow as soon as they had set out from Riverside. Back then, it had been a gentle snowfall that gradually transformed the broken windows and ruined house fronts into gentler curves, blackened chimneys and crumbled walls turning into the fantastical beasts and playful towers that adorned the topiary gardens of the nobles on the Hill. They had traveled through a muted landscape that seemed muffled in snow like a lady clad in her silver fox fur, and even his prickly gentleman, the scholar who had found him a week ago and by now seemed to have half made up his mind to stay, just like one of the feral cats of the quarter might, had been unusually silent next to St. Vier.

Yet that peace had not lasted. One village past, they had parted ways with the merchant who had taken them along in his cart for the protection St. Vier's name and sword offered. Looking at his scholar, huddling miserably beneath Richard's own ragged old cloak, the swordsman wished that he had the money to buy them transport in a carriage. But that would come, he reminded himself. Today Jarbon the Dancer, and in one week, Hal Lynch. Once he was paid, they would have plenty of gold for new cloaks, for good food and wine, for enough wood to keep the oven burning day and night – perhaps even a book for his scholar, Richard thought and looked at his companion.

Alec scowled. The worn brown cloak had turned white from all the snow that had accumulated, as had Alec's hair. The long scholar's tail looked frozen and stiff, and Richard wondered for a moment how they were going to disentangle it later. He would buy oil too, he decided. The scented stuff that the nobles used. And a visit to one of the bath houses, with hot water and soft towels for them...

“This was a terrible idea,” Alec said viciously. "Terrible. I cannot believe I followed you into.... _this_." He gestured with his elegant scholar's hands, encompassing the frozen wasteland around them with one derisive gesture. "There is nothing here. Nothing! I cannot believe that anyone would voluntarily leave the city for this. No tavern, no fire, no music, no food, no-" He broke off, shivering convulsively as the wind gained in force. It was still snowing, but it was no longer the gentle, soft flakes that had covered Riverside and Hill alike with a heavy white blanket. The snow that fell consisted of tiny crystals that felt little small shards of ice when the force of the wind drove them into their eyes and what was exposed of their faces.

"He said that the village was right behind this hill."

Alec did not acknowledge Richard at all, but continued to viciously curse the merchant who had left them here, the noble who had bought Richard's sword for this job, and the man whom Richard would kill tonight. Richard smiled when the first light-filled window shone out from behind the curtain of snow like a beacon.

"Five that he will not be worth it." Alec's voice was sharp, as if he was disappointed that the village existed after all. "Gold," he then added with spiteful satisfaction.

"You do not have that much money," Richard said calmly, smiling at Alec who would bet the sum a noble would while wearing Richard's own ragged cloak over his threadbare scholar's robe.

"How do you know?" Alec asked and then shivered again, his face losing the vicious sharpness when he hunched over and rubbed his hands against each other beneath the cloak.

"Anyway, I do not bet."

"You are insane."

Richard smiled indulgently at the scholar who had followed him out into a snow storm on a whim.

"You buy us wine and food before you kill him." Alec then said. "Hot wine. Lots of it. And chocolate when we get back to the city. Do they even know what chocolate is, here?"

He cast a derisive look at the man who came stumbling out of the tavern's door, clutching a tankard of some hot beverage in his hand which steamed in the frozen air. “Lucy!” he yelled, his voice slurring. “'m takin' a piss! More wine for me 'n my friend!”

Alec gave him a disgusted look as he stepped around him to enter the tavern, but Richard stood still for a moment, watched the drunk stumble a few feet forward to piss into the snow, still clutching the tankard in one hand. Girded to his hips was the slender blade of a swordsman.

~~~

Inside the tavern, they found a few merchants who had been held up by the snow less than a day's journey away from the city. There were the inhabitants of the village as well, farmers with calloused hands and drab, home-spun garments giving them looks that were both hostile for letting in the cold, if only for a moment, and with the calculating disinterest of those who live near a trade road.

"Wine!" Alec drawled, and more heads turned their way at his pronunciation, eyes beginning to gleam as they took in the black of his scholar's robe beneath Richard's old cloak. "Hot! Lots of it! And food."

Alec made his way to a tiny, rickety table in a corner by the fire that looked as if it had just been deserted by its previous owner. The wood was sticky with spilled wine, and one man sprawled in a chair, slack-jawed with drink.

"This is my table," Alec declared, every vowel pronounced with careful negligence, and the man just stared at him with bulging eyes for a moment. Then Richard stepped closer and touched the hilt of his sword. A moment later, the man was stumbling away, cursing softly, though his speech was so slurred that his words were unintelligible.

They were brought wine, still steaming, that smelled faintly of cloves, and the girl that served them ignored Alec's demands for hot meat pies and slapped down two bowls of a stew that she said was mutton, though Alec could not see any meat in it beneath the chunks of carrot and yellow turnip. The girl, thin and distrustful, eyed them warily until Richard paid her, then clutched the money tightly in her fist and hurried back into the kitchen.

“Will you bet on whether I will find any mutton in here?” Alec asked and derisively pushed a spoon through the stew.

“At least it is hot. Tomorrow I will buy you meat pies and chocolate.”

“You really don't bet, do you?” Alec looked up all of a sudden and studied him with the sharp, detached curiosity of a bird of prey swooping down upon its food. No, Richard thought, no buzzard, though Alec's mouth was as sharp as a beak, and he could tear and cut with it. Alec was also vulnerable when he least expected it, and cruel when he expected gentleness.

“I don't. I do not believe in letting fate rule me. I know what I can do. I know what others can do.”

“And if you don't, then you wait until you have figured them all out. Like in one of your fights. Is all the world a fight to you?” Alec's lips had thinned in deliberate cruelty as he threw the words at Richard with the ease a Riverside child would throw knives. And no matter where Alec had grown up, his words could cut like knives. Richard reminded himself that he would have to buy Alec a knife, a good one. He could not always be around him.

“Most of it is,” he easily admitted. “You are. No, you are not a fight. I cannot figure you out.” Richard smiled at his ragged scholar, awash in happiness all of a sudden. “I am glad you are no swordsman. I would never be able to even get close to you.”

Alec looked at him, then looked away, tightening the cloak around himself. “You are good at that. Getting close.” He stared at the chunks of turnip in his stew, then began to eat without another word.

~~~

Richard's sword dripped blood into the snow. Drop after drop falling and turning into ice, like rubies against the pale throat of a lady on the Hill.

Richard was not even breathing hard. Jarbon the Dancer had been one of the first real swordsmen he had ever seen. He had been good, quick and agile and always just a little too smug, playing with his opponents when he should have killed them. Of course, that was what the public agreed a good swordsman should do.

Richard wiped down his sword on Jarbon's cloak, outwardly calm as the still-falling snow. Inside, his own blood was burning in his veins, beating hard with the rhythm of this fight. _One step forward, two steps back, fall out, do not let him see that you have noticed his fear, stay calm, just parry, let him teach you about all of his weaknesses-_

It had been nothing like that. There was no art in Jarbon's death. Rather, it had been like killing a pig for meat. Jarbon had roared and raised his sword as he ran at him, eyes bloodshot and breath stinking of drink. Jarbon the Dancer was dead. But he had been dead long before St. Vier came to the village.

“That was quick,” Alec commented and came towards him, his eyes gleaming and his lips parted, so that small clouds appeared in front of his face as he breathed. “You make certain that you do not need to bet, don't you?”

“I do,” Richard agreed easily, and though the fight had not excited him, he felt hot now, too big for his skin, barely able to keep from moving. Alec smiled as if drunk when he saw Richard's fingers twitch restlessly against the hilt of his sword.

“Let's go inside where it is warm,” he said breathlessly. “Let's eat, and drink, and see if someone else wants to fight you for a place by the fire.”

~~~

Richard's mouth curved against Alec's skin, tasting his sweat, tasting the iron tang of his blood. Beneath him, Alec sprawled on the bed in languid, content pleasure. A drop of red ran down the long, pale back. Blood on snow, Richard thought and kissed the cut he had made. He was calm now, feeling quiet as the snow outside. The restlessness the too-short fight had left was gone. In truth, it had gone with the first cut he had made, leaving his blade's mark on Alec's skin who had made a soft sound. His eyes had been wide as if he had eaten Fool’s Delight, but when they kissed, the stickiness on their lips was that of blood.

“Richard-” Alec said, and then lost all speech, though Richard read his body with his hands, feeling him taut with impossible tension, then make a sound as if something inside him was breaking when another drop of blood made its way down his back. Richard calmly drew a finger through it, drew it across that thin back, painting a crest on him, marking him with the one thing that was truly the mark of what Richard was.

Alec shivered again. “Yes,” he said, “yes, Richard! Write your name on me, cut it into my skin! Richard!”

The swordsman carefully laid aside his blade, feeling the preternatural calm that had come over him leave him at last. The way Alec said his name - ah! His hand was trembling too now when he touched Alec's skin, tracing the lines of bones, of sinews, of quickly beating, bluish veins, all speaking to him with their own language, with Alec’s own secret alphabet.

“But I cannot write, Alec,” he said and laughed softly, for there was no need for him to know the letters that made up his name. That was his true name there, written onto Alec’s skin for everyone to read who could _truly_ read.

“But you do,” Alec said, sounding drunk, and then he turned and came into Richard’s arms, too hot and too yielding and too demanding, and for a long time neither of them could speak.

“You do.” Alec’s voice was rough and a little tired, all madness gone, though the haughtiness had not yet returned. “Richard. Blood and skin and sharp, sharp iron. A swordsman’s signature.”


End file.
